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Six contractors to work on £5bn Greenwich Peninsula

Developer Lend Lease denies decision was influenced by capacity issues in London market

Lend Lease and Quintain are looking for up to six contractors to help build their £5bn Greenwich Peninsula scheme in east London.

It had been predicted that Bovis Lend Lease, Lend Lease’s subsidiary, which is working on the scheme’s first phase, would take the lion’s share of the work on the development.

However, it is understood that six contractors will now be sought to deliver the next phases of the scheme, and that Bovis – which is already building the £4bn Olympic village in Stratford for Lend Lease – is unlikely to be involved.

The move has prompted speculation that capacity shortages in the London market have made it difficult to find a major contractor to oversee the scheme.

However, Robin Butler, Lend Lease’s deputy chairman, denied that a large delivery partner had been difficult to find. He said: “We’re building a big piece of infrastructure and we’re looking for the best delivery teams to help us do it. The market is coming back to normal now. We’ve had contractors coming to us looking for work, which would have been unthinkable a year ago.”

The developers are finalising their procurement plans for the 190-acre site, and it is understood that three medium-sized contractors will be hired to tackle jobs worth between £75m and 80m, while three smaller contractors will build projects worth between £30m and £50m.

The first phase comprises an office designed by Terry Farrell and Partners, a further education college by Foreign Office Architects and a residential scheme by Flacq.

Over the next 15 years, 10,000 homes and 3.5 million ft2 of employment and office space will be built on the Greenwich Peninsula.